In short, SDT emphasises the process of therapy as being
facilitated by the therapists’ disciplined approach to being
autonomy-supportive, and providing the need-related nutriments
of structure and involvement that allow the integrative propensities
within clients’ to become active. In addition, given that SDT is
also a theory of psychopathology in which developmental need
deprivations are considered crucial to the formation of clinical
presentations (Ryan et al., 2006), it also supplies a set of contents
for therapists to consider. Where prior theories saw the growth and
conflicts of the psyche as based in drive energies or external
reinforcements, SDT instead sees the moving forces of the psyche
in terms of basic psychological needs and the dynamics of their
support or frustration within social contexts.